Interview
Temtris |
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| Can you tell the readers a bit
about the band's history? Fox - When Temtris was originally formed it was given the name Labrynthia, which was taken from a band called Labyrinth that Genevieve (vocalist) and I (Guitarist) had started in High School. Llew (Death Vocals/Guitarist) played guitar for Labyrinth in one incarnation (and drums at one stage). Labrynthia was never meant to be permanent, just a working title, which we used for a couple of small shows, just trying things out really. Then we were invited to tour with Pegazus and Dungeon. During that time we were working with Wayne Campbell (Drummer/Ex-Mortal Sin) and it was pretty wild. We were struggling to find solid musicians. Then, fortunately, we crossed paths with Llew again who was having similar troubles with his Black Metal outfit called Malice. We agreed to help each other out by filling the gaps in each others bands. Inevitably I guess the two groups began to bleed into one another, the end result was Temtris. Llew - We formed Temtris with the objective to blend more traditional style metal with heavier more extreme styles. The original line up also featured the other guitarist from Malice, Azgard (now Bane of Isildur), on bass so to begin with you could say the 2 bands almost merged into one for a time. This gave us a good cross reference of musical styles to start work on the project. Other band commitments saw Azgard and Wayne leave the band and replaced by Gavin on bass and Tom on drums. Shortly after “Masquerade” was recorded being the first official full length release, an earlier album (Threshold) was recorded but it was never released, maybe in the future. What are your biggest influences? Fox - If you put the individual influences of the current band members together it makes quite a bizarre list which stretches from Emperor, through Flotsam and Jetsam all the way to Pink Floyd and Mike Oldfield. I think that may go some way to explaining why some of our music seems a little bit 'outside the normal' in terms of heavy metal. Llew - As a teenager I (like everyone) was influenced heavily by Metallica, Megadeth and Sepultura…until I discovered the more extreme styles firstly the death metal scene being introduced to bands like Carcass and Bolt Thrower then later Black Metal through bands like Emperor. Funnily enough it was then that I was introduced to the more traditional styles of Iron Maiden, Queensryche and the like. So the melting pot for the Temtris sound becomes quite vast….we’ll try to adapt any styles into the sound as long as it still sounds metal. Can you speak to us about your new album called “Masquerade “? Llew - Well firstly its available through Twilight records in Europe, Century Media in the States and Modern Invasion here in Oz so look out for it in CD stores that stock these distributors CDs. There’s a link on our myspace page (www.myspace.com/temtrisband) to take you there if you need to purchase online. Fox - Masquerade was an album written on a concept of all things that people use as 'masks' in life. It didn't start out that way, but when we finished recording the song 'Masquerade' for the album we noticed that we had been hitting that angle with a lot of our lyrics from a lot of different directions. Even the album cover is a reflection of the 'Second-Life' internet world where so many people are existing as someone or something else (I don't really have a sword that big! Lol.) Llew - It was a long time coming too, (over three years). We had written and finished the songs to go on the album (we d even started picking artwork!), then we had line up changes, and some relocation problems. Finally with that all behind us we went back and listened to what we had which was good but we felt could be better so we went back and started all over again with the original riffs and ideas and came out with what is on the album. Much more complete and well rounded songs. The sound is dark, melodic but dynamic and unusual. Fox - Musically, it's a very diverse collection of music and it was a lot of fun to write and record. I'm still listening to it and hearing things I hadn't noticed before. Who is responsible for song writing? Fox - Genevieve and Llew usually share the lyrics side of things although I have been known to write lyrics from time to time. Llew - On Masquerade both Fox and I were responsible for the music. Now that we have a solid line up though I’m expecting that we will all have some form of input. The more input the more ideas to work with. How did you proceed for the composition? Fox - When we write a song we actually 'write' it, as in full notation. Llew -And both Fox and myself have our own studios so most of the initial writing is done separately. Fox - This becomes our 'skeleton' draft which we more often than not completely tear to pieces by the time we are done. Llew - Then once it has been completed in the studio it is presented to the band. It is quite hard to get a natural sound to a song writing in the studio not using musicians so the band ‘jams’ the original idea experimenting and fine tuning as we go…we spend a lot of time doing this. It allows the other personalities in the band to come out in the song. Then it is rearranged yet again once the vocal part is added if it hasn’t been already. Fox - Then we record it, tear it to pieces again and then at some point someone says 'I think that's enough f**king with it. It sounds fine'. Can you speak to us about the recording sessions? Fox - Genevieve is always a pain in the arse. This semitone that semitone, someone tell me when I start singing, I don't understand these fucking lyrics. No Fox I don't think it really matters if there is a diminished 7th in the 15th bar or not and if you tweak that solo one more time… Llew the track isn’t recording….did you forget to switch off the mute switch again! Tom turn that f**king mobile phone OFF in the studio. Yes, that chorus, not the other chorus that used to be the bridge after the verse Gav. Seriously though it's a lot of fun… no really it is! LOL Llew -This is what we lovingly refer to as ‘studio madness’ it effects about 1 in every 1 recording musician lol. Broadly though, all of the tracking was done at either mine or Fox’s studios. It was then mixed by Fox and mastered Kai from Saxorior in Germany. It was a lot of hard work but a great learning experience for us, and we are looking forward to recording the next album with the knowledge that we have obtained from recording “Masquerade”. What are the lyrics talking about? Where do you find inspiration? Fox - We each write in different ways when it comes to lyrics. I tend to use a lot of imagery, and stuff that can be read on a couple of levels, Genevieve tends to be more get in your face and tell it how it is, and Llew is black metal down to the black soles of his blackest boots standing in a pool of blackness. Llew - Blacker than the blackest black times infinity. Who created the artwork? Llew -Some great artists, and now friends, that are avid supporters of the band from America, Amy & Dennis @ DnA Designs (Contact them here http://www.myspace.com/kopykatt) They were interested in designing the cover for us, and we had a pretty vague idea on what we were looking for to begin with and these guys worked tirelessly on it creating the character, completely from scratch. The designs went back and forth until the idea was complete. Fox - 'That cover' has caused quite a lot of comment. The concept we had for the cover was given to three separate 'hand drawing artists' here in Australia and none of them could handle it! We decided to use this CG image on the album cover, because we hoped people would see the cover and think "Hey, that's one of those computer avatars, now there's a masquerade in the modern world if ever there was. OK maybe it was a bit ambiguous, but some people did get it. For those that didn’t- Yes, it's supposed to look like a computer drawn picture. The fact that it was CG for some reason this upset a small (and may I add isolated) part of the metal community but hey this is heavy metal and we do what WE want. Llew -That’s right, and apart from that small pocket everybody else loves the cover, just because it didn’t fit they re idea of a stereo typical ‘Metal’ album cover (what ever that is???) is no reason to have a little cry about it! Fox -It does get talked about though, which is better than it getting ignored. What are your favourite songs out of this new album? And what makes them so special for you? Llew - For me every song on that album is a favourite. There is at least one part in every track where I lose myself in the song. But the stand out track for me would be “Innocence Surrendered” it has everything I love in music. It takes us to a whole other place when we play it live. It’s dark and aggressive in places yet in others melodic and subtle. Fox - I also have to go with Innocence Surrendered, but have to add Ashes and Rain because they're great live songs, and The Hunger (C'mon it's a two and a half minute twin guitar solo what's not to like?). Gen likes Masquerade because the lyrics are kind of personal. What's your opinion about the international metal scene? Llew - There are a lot of great bands out there writing great music but also there is a lot of rehashed ideas too. Some of this rehashed ideas are done well too which I think hinders the metal market a little as it floods the market with the same thing over and over again. Why you would want to spend countless hours perfecting a style that doesn’t have any of yourself in it is beyond me but if you take a quick look around there are literally thousands of bands making exact duplicates of bands that have gone before them. Pantera would be a great example. The amount of bands copying them is astronomical! Styles becomes flavour of the week and record companies scramble to create their own commercial version and flood the market making it difficult for original sounds to make their way to the limelight, but hey, nothing new there hahahaha. We try not only to do something different but to also put as much of ourselves into the music as we can; this is the only way to make something a little more unique. To find metal like this you have to dig around. As far as the fans are concerned, most fans are happy to support good music whether it is the cheesiest power metal or the epitome of death metal brutality. And that’s the way it should be, metal is metal! Brothers and sisters unite! Do you have any funny or strange stories about the band you can share with us? Llew -Plenty although they best remain internal hahahaha Are there any plans for an upcoming tour? Fox - We've just finished our tour. We've got a couple of special feature shows to do later in the year. There's an 'all female vocalist' line-up of bands to raise money for Breast Cancer Research which we are headlining. Being able to use what we do to support things like that is very important to us. Llew - We are really hoping to make it overseas at some point in the future though. Fingers crossed. What are your projects for the future? Fox - Now the official tour is over we are back in the studio doing pre-production on the tracks for the next album. It's early days yet but what we've produced so far is sounding very promising. Llew -We already have a few songs in the 2nd recording phase and several on their way. I have a black metal recording project called “Ravensgate” which I’m working on www.myspace.com/ravensgateband . And Tom and I are talking about doing a down tempo black metal project together also, so we’ll be kept busy. And as a conclusion, can you say some words for my radio show Metal Choc? Llew - METAL CHOC ROCKS! If it’s not on Metal Choc then it’s not metal! |
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